
ass_ 



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Book 



I'rr.senti-;d isy 



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MASTKRKUL I RIBU lES 

ro IHH 

Memory of President Lincoln 

By Hon William Jennings Bryan is-l^i^ 

AND 

The Volunteer Soldier 

Bv Hon John M. Thurstox 




DELIVKRKD AT rHE COLUMBIA THEATER 
WASHINGTON. D. C. 

ON THE EVENING OF APRIL 14, 1907 

(42d Anni'i'ersary of Mr. IJucaln s Assassination) 

Uni)h;k Tin-: auspicks and for th k brnki'it oi- thk 

tSrlirf Jfun& of fEurampment ?fn. 111. Untuu Htptrrau IGriunu 

COPYRIGHT APF'LIED KOR PRICK, 10 C'KNTS 

BKNSON & GLI3BS, Publishers 

210-1 1 Muiisey Building 

Washine'.on. 1). C 



L 

.6 

Lintofniana 



"With malice toward none, with charity for all."' 

An livenioii' with Abrahcim Lincoln 



COLUMBIA THEATER 

Washington, D. C. 

Forty-second Anniversary of the Death of Abraham Lincoln 

STNDAY, APRTT, 14. tqo;, AT 8 P. M. 

Under the auspices of 
[Tnion Veteran Txisfio'n Encampment, No. in 

COMMITTEE 

GKORGE S. BKNSON, Chairman 
HORACE H. RROVVER, Sporetarv OLIVER P. HALI.AM, Treasurer 

OLIVER SHAW FREn R. SPARKS 



^"^SIS 



Gift 



V Va^ULtD 



3 Je'08 



Program 



1. Invocation Rev. H. N. Couden 

Chaplain House of Representatives 

2. Introduction of Permanent Chairman. Col. F. H. Hartley 

Com. Encampment No. iii, U. V. L, 

3. Address by Permanent Chairman Gen. John C. Black 

Past Com.-in-Chief G. A. R. 

4. Patriotic Medley 13th U. S. Cavalry Band 

5. Reading Col. John Tweedale, U. S. A. 

6. Song Prof. Jasper Dean McFall and Miss McFall 

7. Address, "The Volunteer Soldier". .Hon. John M. Thurston 

8. Music, "Departed Days" Band 

9. Address, "Lincoln" Hon. William Jennings Bryan 

10. America Band and Audience 

11. Benediction Rev. D. J. Stafford, D.D. 



An Evening with Abraham Lincoln 

AT 

Columbia Theater, W'asliington, D.- C, April 14, 1907 

1. Invocation Rev. H. M. Couden 

Chaplain House of Representatives 

2. Introduction of Permanent Chairman. Col. F. H. Hartley 

Com. Encampment No. iii, U. \\ L. 

3. Address by Permanent Chairman Gen. John C. Black 

Past Com.-in-chief, G. A. R. 

Comrades and Fellow Citizens: 

A generation ago — forty-two years — and within hail of the 
place where this great audience is assembled, Abraham Lincoln, 
by the hand of an insane murderer, was lifted from the ranks of 
strife to the place of eternal peace. For him "to die was gain ;" 
he was at the end of a great strife where hard Fate had made him 
the nation's leader. He was saved by that death from all the 
perplexities and troubles of an unchartered future, all the experi- 
ments and all the failures interfering with a fame absolutely 
secure by human standards. He passed from the heights of vic- 
tory, hardly upward, but rather onward to the place of glory. 
And it is well that here where he fell, by the capitol of the nation, 
that this assemblage, gathered from all the land and from every 
degree of citizenship, should meet and mingle their sacred recol- 
lections and praises before the fame of a foremost American. 
And it is well that the anniversary should have fallen on this day, 
ordinarily held sacred to the worship of the Lord, God of Hosts. 
Our services in memory of Lincoln on this day can neither set the 
pulse of animosity anywhere beating in an American breast, nor 
can it be anything but acceptable on this day ; for over and over 
again during that tumultuous time, when the sun was hidden in 
the American heaven, and all the passions from the nether world 
seemed loosed upon the surface of our sorrowing earth, and when 
the tears of a mighty people fell ceaselessly for the brave and the 
true, and when it seemed as though Providence had deserted the 
cause, then the voice of this untutored woodsman rings through 
the land, calling the people again and again to the worship and to 



thanksgiving to the God and the Father. And in the wreck and 
welter of war, when olden institutions seemed to be lost to sight, 
his was the voice that said to the thunder of guns and the shout- 
ings of captains, "On the day of the Lord, ye shall be still." And 
from Moses until now no man has so strongly spoken for the Sab- 
bath as Lincoln when he ordered that cessation of strife should, 
whenever possible, occur on that day. And do you doubt, my fel- 
low-citizens, that in through the ranks of the armies, those of 
the gray as well as those of the blue, that this reverence of the 
Great President for the sacred hour of childhood's recollections 
had a mighty influence? So it is well that on the Sabbath, forty- 
two years from the time when he laid down his burden, that a 
great, reunited people should honor his memory. But my duty is 
not to address you, but simply to guide your meeting. Those who 
are to come after me will tell you of this wondrous light. In be- 
lialf of these, my comrades, I welcome you to this great and, I 
hope, holy occasion. 

4. Patriotic Medley 13th U. S. Cavalry Band 

5. Reading Col. John Tweedale, U. S. A. 

O, CAPTAIN ! MY CAPTAIN ! 

BY WALT WHITMAN 



O, Captain ! My Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
The ship has weather'd every wrack, the prize we sought is won ; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel firm and daring ; 
But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 

O the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen, cold and dead. 

II 

O Captain ! My Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills ; 

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding ; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here Captain! Dear Father! 

This arm beneath your head ; 
It is some dream that on the deck. 
You've fallen cold and dead. 



Ill 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, it's voyage closed and done ; 
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 
Exult, O shores, and ring O bells ! 

But I, with mournful tread. 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen, cold and dead. 

(First published in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard 
Bloom'd," 1865-6.) 

6. Song Prof. Jasper Dean McFall- and Miss McFall 

7. Address, "The Volunteer Soldier". . .Hon. John M. Thurston 

The Chairman : Fellow citizens, one of the most beautiful 
stories of ancient history is the story of Castor and Pollux, and 
how in all the extremeties of the great Roman world these two 
twins * * * saved the day. The state of Nebraska has fur- 
nished the two orators for this occasion. There have been times 
I know when Nebraska would have been satisfied with either or 
both in the White House. 

The first is one whose father was in the war of the Rebel- 
lion, and died in battle, leaving to his son the highest gift that 
valor and patriotism can bestow upon a child. Of the American 
Volunteer Soldier that gentleman is to-night to speak, and I pre- 
sent to you the famed Senator Thurston, now of this city. 




HON. JOHN M. THURSTON 



John Mellen Thurston, Republican, of Omaha, was born 
at Montpelier, Vt., August 21, 1847. His ancestors were Puritans; 
their settlement in this country dates back to 1636 ; his grand- 
father Mellen and great-grandfather Thurston were both soldiers 
in the Revolutionary \\'ar ; his parents removed to Wisconsin in 
1854; his father was a private soldier in the First Wisconsin Cav- 
alry, and died in the service in the spring of 1863 ; was educated 
in the public schools and at Wayland University, Beaver Dam, 
W^is., supporting himself by farm work, driving teams, and other 
manual labor ; was admitted to the bar May 21, 1869, and in Octo- 
ber of the same year located in Omaha, his legal residence being 
there ; was elected a member of the city council in 1872, city attor- 
ney of Omaha in 1874, and a member of the Nebraska legislature 
in 1875 ; was a member of the Republican National Convention in 
1884, and temporary chairman of the Republican National Con- 
vention in 18818 ; was president of the Republican League of the 
United States, 1889 to 1891 ; was selected as permanent chairman 
of the Republican National Convention held in the city of St. 
Louis, June 16, 17, and 18, 1896, which nominated Maj. William 
McKinley, of Ohio, for President; in 1877 he became assistant 
attorney of the Union Pacific Railway Company, and in February, 
1888, was appointed general solicitor of the Union Pacific system, 
and held that position at the time of his election to the United 
States Senate, was the Republican caucus nominee for L^nited 
States Senator in the Nebraska legislature in January. 1893, ^"*^ 
received the entire party vote, lacking five votes of election ; 
January i, 1895, was tendered in writing the unanimous vote of 
the entire Republican membership in the legislature, and was 
elected January 15, 1895, for the term commencing March 4, 1895. 
Senator Thurston is one of the most prominent lawyers of 
Washington, and has offices in the Bond Building. 



Senator Thurston : 

Comrades of the Grand Army, Ladies, and Gentlemen — 
Forty-two years ago there passed into history the simplest, sweet- 
est, strongest, serenest, sublimest character of the age. The life 
of that man, as we review it, is a constant incentive to American 
youth. Born of the humblest parentage, struggling upward 
through a youth of toil, without assistance except as he compelled 
the respect and admiration of men, he was one day to be the Chief 
Executive of this nation in the greatest crisis of our country's 
history. This opportunity for American youths is our proudest 
boast. They had it in the time of Abraham Lincoln, they had it 
in the time of James A. Garfield, they had it in the time of Wil- 
liam McKinley, and they have it to-day. In spite of the accumu- 
lation of wealth in the hands of the few, in spite of the power of 
great organizations, these truths of American conditions remain 
to-day that there is no road to wealth or fame or glory in this re- 
public that is not open alike to every American child. On the 
'broad highway of American opportunity the barefoot boy out- 
strips the golden chariot of ancestorial wealth, and every mother 
in this broad land, as she hushes the weak protest of the baby's 
voice upon her holy breast, knows that her boy may live to become 
the President of the Republic. (Applause.) 

Who can study the life of Abraham Lincoln without being 
confirmed in the belief of an overruling power that guides the 
destiny of nations and of men ? Who can doubt that in the time of 
our great trial there was a power over and above that of man that 
selected a fitting leader to accomplish a great purpose. In ordi- 
nary times, as we study human history, Providence seems to leave 
man to work out their own salvation by struggle and travail, pick- 
ing their way onward and upward if they can, but in every great 
crisis, when some supreme question has to be settled, or the wel- 
fare of mankind is hanging in the balance, God's finger has 
pointed the way and the man of Providence has been found. Who 
can doubt that this continent of ours has been under the special 
care of an overruling Providence ? It kept it through all the cen- 
turies when the people of the other world were working their way 
onward and upward, until in the fullness of time they had become 
strong enough, brave enough, and able enough to take up the 
problem of a people's government in the new world, to set an ex- 
ample to all the other nations of the earth that they might follow. 
Who can doubt that this Providence put into the quickened mind 
of the humble Genoese sailor the idea of a round world, softened 
the heart of Queen Isabella until the jewels of her crown became 
the price of the fleet that sailed into the unknown seas ; stood at 
helm and guided the ships aright, and when they landed on the 
unknown strand raised above them the great white cross of a 
Savior's love, the emblem of immortal hope. 



But I am here to-night, my countrymen, to speak for a little 
time of the Volunteer Soldier. Sometimes, in passing along the 
street, I meet a man who, in the left lapel of his coat, wears a 
little, plain, modest, unassuming, bronze button. The coat is often 
worn and rusty ; the face above seamed and furrowed by toil and 
suffering of adverse years ; perhaps, beside it, hangs an empty 
sleeve, or below it stumps a wooden peg, but when I meet the 
man who wears that button I dofT my hat and stand uncovered in 
his presence. 

Yea, to me the very dust his weary foot has pressed is holy 
ground, for I know that man, in the dark hour of the nation's 
peril, bared his breast to the "hell of battle" to keep the flag of 
our country in the Union sky. Maybe, at Donnellson, he reached 
the inner trench, at Sliiloh held the broken line, at Chattanooga 
climbed the flame-swept hill, or stormed the clouds on Lookout 
Heights. He was not born or bred to soldier life ; his country's 
summons called him from the plow, the forge, the loom, the mine, 
the forest, the shop, the factory, the store, the school ; yea, the 
sanctuary. He did not fight for greed of gold, to woo ambition, 
or to win renown. He loved the peace of quiet ways, and yet he 
broke the clasp of clinging arms, turned from the witching glance 
of tender eyes, left good-bye kisses upon tiny lips, to look death 
in the face on desperate fields. And, when the war was over, he 
quietly took up the broken threads of love and life as best he 
could ; the better citizen for having been so good a soldier. 

The world honors the Volunteer Soldiers of the United States. 
Not so much because they were brave, for all soldiers have been 
brave since the beginning of time. Soldiers have fought just as. 
valiantly under the banner of despots, aye and for the enslavement 
of their fellow-beings, as they have fought under the banner of 
the free. Bravery is inherent in the human race. I might say we 
honor them because they were brave, and we do. Yet this is not 
the chief thing for which we bow our heads in reverence to them. 
We honor them because they fought for the principles that they 
believed in their souls to be right, that they believed in it so 
strongly that the call to arms took them from home without hesi- 
tation ; the call to arms took them from business life with- 
out hesitation ; the call to arms took them into the field, leaving 
behind them the best years of opportunity and endeavor, to fight 
and contend for what they held in their souls to be the living 
truth. And when I say this, my countrymen, I speak as well for 
the soldiers of the South as of the North. (Applause.) 

Up to the time of Abraham Lincoln the world had stood 
sponsor for human slavery. All nations held weaker men in 
bondage, and the time came when it was necessary that the world 
should break this great oppressive band that held it to the Jug- 
gernaught of human slavery. The American people had to break 



it. We had on our continent two sections and two peoples, all ol 
the same blood, all of the same valorous and liberty-loving stock ; 
one of these peoples had inherited as a legacy human slavery, and 
the other had not, and it was inevitable in the fullness of time that 
this great question had to be met and had to be finally settled by 
the arbitrament of war. And on either side of that great conten- 
tion men rushed to battle, profoundly impressed with the idea 
that they were fighting for their rights ; that they were fighting 
for their native land ; that they were fighting for their homes and 
their own institutions. And when the war was over, when it had 
ended as Providence alone would have had it end, these two peo- 
ples came together once more in loving reconcilliation, in a united 
loyalty to American institutions, that will make us the grandest 
people of all the earth in the years to come. (Applause.) 

The Blue and the Gray lie in eternal slumber side by side. 
Heroes, all, they fell face to face, brother against brother, to ex- 
piate memory of the loved, the yearning for the lost, are past re- 
call ; but through the mingled tears that fall alike upon the hon- 
ored dead of both, the North and South turn hopeful eyes to that 
new future of prosperity and power, possible only in the shelter 
of the dear old flag. To the North and the South, to the White 
man and the Black, to the master and the slave, to civilization 
and to the world, your victories were God's Providence. 
(Applause.) 

These are not fighting times, in which we come to speak of 
the Volunteer Soldiers of the United States, and we are not a 
warlike people. Every instinct of the American is for peace. 
Every efifort of American diplomacy and statesmanship has al- 
ways been exerted for peace, and' always will be. We have never 
as a nation fought for conquest or dominion ; we have never 
fought except for holy and sacred purposes. Five times only in a 
century and a third have the American people taken up the gage 
of battle ; first for independence, that the colonists might have 
the right to govern themselves in that land they had made and 
settled ; to believe and Avorship according to the dictates of their 
own consciences, and for the fight to a government for themselves 
in which the voice of the majority might control; second, in 1812, 
to establish the rights of American sailors upon the high sea and 
to make the deck of an American ship American soil ; third, in 
1847, that the little republic of Texas might have the right to 
her own free will to set her single star a-shining in the galaxy of 
the national flag; and again, in 1861, when we fought to preserve 
a union that was necessary to the salvation and advancement of the 
western world; and once again, and last, in 1898, that the power 
of a great and free people might go* out like the blessing of God 
to our neighbors across the -sea who could not help themselves, 



and lift them up into the sunhght of hherty and self-government 
and prosperity. 

After each one of these great wars our soldiers have returned 
to their homes, not overboastful of their achievements; not to 
live upon the splendor of what they had done in war, but to quietly 
take up the responsibilities of private and public life where they 
had left them, and to become a part, and one of the best parts, 
of the common citizenship of the United States. What splendid 
citizens these volunteer soldiers of ours became when they laid 
down their arms! In every community from sea to sea, from 
lakes to gulf, they have been leaders for law and order and 
peace and good government. They have been business men re- 
nowned for their honesiy and intelligence ; and in every walk of 
life much as the volunteer soldier has been honored for deeds of 
war he is honored by the American people for the later achieve- 
ments in all these later years in the affairs of peace. It was 
fortunate, my countrymen, that after this great war in which 
these men fought there should come another experience which 
would blot and wipe out all that remained, or that possibly could 
remain, of any bitterness or sectional feeling. While we^ spent 
millions of money and shed much blood in the war to sef Cuba 
free, if we had never received and never will receive anything else 
to show for it, we have received more than enough. In that war, 
brief as it was, allowing the patriotic youth of the whole coun- 
try to gather under the same flag, wearing the same uniform, 
elbows touching elbows, the men arid the sons of men who fought 
against each other in the years gone by, the last lingering trace 
of regret and bitterness because of the war of the rebellion w^as 
eliminated from the thoughts of the people, north and south. It 
did more than this : it made our flag beloved, not only of the lips 
but of the heart of everv American man, woman, and child in all 
this great land. (Applause.) I am not here tocnight to exploit 
to any extent the accomplishments of the American citizen sol- 
diers. They are rapidly passing away. The roll-call will .soon 
receive no answer. And for this reason, perhaps more than any 
other, I love to see the people come together and pay their tribute 
of respect as vou are paying it to-night for what they did for us. 
They made it' possible for us to have a country that will endure. 
If they had not won the victory-under Abraham Lincoln we would 
have had on this continent two rival powers, two republics, neither 
of them strong enough of itself to withstand the oppression of 
other great powers of the world. And it is almost certain that 
there would have come a time when the prediction of the despotic 
rulers of the old world would have come true, when they said that 
the American republic could not continue to exist, that it would 
fall to pieces of internal dissention. and the time would come 
when anarchv would take its place. But not with a united people. 



with our land free from ocean to ocean, with our national advan- 
tage, our great wealth, our wonderful possibilities, the time will 
never come when any one nation or any combination of nations 
will dare to turn against the flag of the United States. 
(Applause.) Men and governments pass away, but the glory 
of great deeds lives on forever. Rome, that sat on her eternal 
hills and from her throne of beauty ruled the world, has crum- 
bled into ruin and decay. Her fleets, her conquering legions. 
her temples, palaces, and triumphal arches sleep, almost forgot- 
ten in the dust of ages. Her power is gone ; her nationality van- 
ished ; her very language dead, misspoken of mankind : but the 
name of her Caesar is as great to-day as when Rome was at the 
zenith of her power, when her fleets sailed into every sea. and 
her legions sought in vain new fields of conquest. Napoleon, 
whose military genius dominated all Europe, for himself and his. 
the most wonderful empire of modern times, whose word made 
and unmade crowns and thrones, whose victorious armies bore 
the eagles of France in triumph from Madrid to Moscow, died 
in exile upon a lonely island of the ocean ; but the glorious 
achievements of the little corporal, side by side with those of 
imperial Ceasar will inspire the hearts of the youths of every 
land to deeds of valor in generations yet to come. It has been 
said that as the victories of Caesar were to Rome and those of 
Napoleon to France, so were yours to the United States. Thev 
were this, but they were more, for Caesar, having no more worlds 
to conquer, turned his victorious armies against the liberty of his 
own country. Napoleon devastated Europe that he might place 
on his imperious brow the crown of despotic power. You won 
your victories for liberty, humanity, and country, won them that 
an enslaved race might be free ; won them that forever and for- 
ever from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there should be an imper- 
ishable union of states sacred to brotherhood of man. And this 
republic — this "government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people," shall not perish from the earth. Our institutions will 
not die. The American spirit that was breathed into the people 
in 1861 will see to it, now and hereafter, that every great Ameri- 
can problem is settled and settled right. 

And after all, we shall turn more year by year to Abraham 
Lincoln and what was accomplished under his great leadership. 
On Freedom's scroll of honor his name is written first. The col- 
lossal statute of his fame stands forever on the pedestal of a peo- 
ple's love. About it are the upturned, glorified faces of an eman- 
cipated race. In its protecting shadow liberty, equal rights, and 
justice is the heritage of every American child. 

The sunshine of approving heaven rests upon it like an infinite 
benediction, and over it calmly floats the unconquered flag of 
the greatest nation on the earth. (Applause.) 



8. Music — Departed Days Band 

9. Address — "LINCOLN" Hon. William Jennings Bryan 

The Chairman : 

Fellow citizens, it is most becoming that a soldier should 
speak of him who wielded the sword without malice. It is be- 
coming that a native son of Illinois should speak of him whose 
early fame is very dear to the hearts of the Illinoisan. It is be- 
coming that a citizen of the Union should speak of him who died 
that it might live. It is fitting that a statesman should speak of 
him who formulated the highest ideals of the American Govern- 
ment, of the people and for the people and by the people. It is 
fitting that he whose benign influence to-day is like a heavenly 
light in every nation of the world, standing always for liberty, 
and law, and union, and the uplifting of mankind should be 
spoken of by an. orator whose story has wakened every American 
human heart and stirred the pulse of mankind. I present to you 
as orator for the occasion, ladies and gentlemen. Honorable 
William Jennings Bryan. (Applause.) 



13 




HON. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 



Mr. Bryan's life had become identified to such an extent with 
the history of his country that a biography is hardly necessary. 
There are, nevertheless, fortunately a rapidly decreasing number 
of his countrymen, who, however well they may know the events 
of his career, do not seem even at this late day to appreciate his 
character. Only this week I find in the public prints copies of an 
editorial ascribed to Henry Watterson, in which, among many 
other things, he says : "]\Ir. Bryan has enemies of his own, and 
these are neither idle nor silent. They say he is sacrificing his 
party to his lecture business. They say that he would rather be 
rich than be President." And then the able editor of the Courier- 
Journal continues at such length with a repetition of this calumny 
that he lays himself open to the suspicion of delighting in it. But 
for this unfair recital of alleged abuse of Air. Bryan, which a sin- 
cere friend would never have repeated, I would not now give 
publicity to some things of a private nature that passed between 
Mr. Bryan and myself. I do this without his consent, because I do 
not want any diffidence I know he would feel about the publication 
of the facts I will set forth to interfere with the justice that is 
his due. 

When the Union Veteran Legion, Encampment No. iii, 
asked Mr. Bryan to lecture on Lincoln, we determined to conduct 
the afifair upon business principles, and therefore offered him 
$500 (five hundred dollars) for his services. I still cherish the 
letter from Mr. Bryan in reply, in which he says that he "could 
not think of accepting money for such a speech, and that if he 
spoke at all it must be distinctly understood that his services 
would be free." He would not even accept his expenses. At the 
time of this correspondence Mr. Bryan's engagements were so 
numerous that it was doubtful if he could favor us. However, 
with great inconvenience to himself, he came to Washington 
over Sunday, April 14, and in the afternoon delivered a lecture on 
"The Prince of Peace," under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A., 
in the National Theater. In the evening, at the Columbia 
Theater, he delivered the following lecture on "Lincoln." This 
latter* address is remarkable because it w-as purely an extempore 
address, Mr. Bryan having had no time to prepare a set oration 
because of his constant duties elsewhere. I have since learned 
from close friends of j\Ir. Bryan, that he never will accept even his 
expenses from anything he does on Sunday, or in behalf of 
patriotic societies, charitable or religious institutions. He delivers, 
on an average, two addresses every Sunday, and is constantly 
speaking at benefits of one kind or other, for which he will not 
accept a penny, even for expenses. 

Of course, it will be agreed by the reader of the following^ 
oration, that nothing else can be expected of the orator of such 
a eulogy. 

May 12, 1907. George S. Benson, Chair)nan. 

15 



Hon. William Jennings Bryan : 

Ladies and gentlemen : I am glad that circumstances were 
such that I could accept the invitation extended to me by the 
Union Veteran Legion to participate in this memorial occasion. 
It is fitting that this sad anniversary should be commemorated 
and that the exercises should be in charge of those who, in that 
great crisis in our nation's history, were soldiers in an army of 
which Abraham Lincoln was commander-in-chief. I have felt 
that while these veterans of the Civil War still live there is no one 
nor class to dispute their right to preeminence in all such occa- 
sions as this. My military service was so brief and so free from 
the dangers that these incurred that I do not count myself a sol- 
dier, although in the Spanish-American War my ofifer of my 
services was dated on the day that the war was declared, and my 
resignation was made on the day that the treaty was signed. So 
that constructive service covered all the real war ; and herein, 
my friends, I realize that we who knew only the camp knew noth- 
ing of war. I bow to the superiority of the veterans, who were 
not only willing to fight their country's battles and to give their 
lives in defense of the flag, but who had an opportunity to prove 
their patriotism by long and painful and arduous service. 

I appreciate the very kind word that has been spoken by 
General Black. He violates one of the Bible injunctions when 
he praises me. for the Bible says that one should not praise the 
work of his own hands. He was a judge in one of my first ora- 
torial contests, and he not only marked me high, but he did more 
than that — he gave me advice after the contest that I have always 
treasured, for I believe it was of great service to me. I am glad, 
therefore, that on this occasion he should be the president, the 
chairman, and present me to you, even if his words are more gen- 
erous that I am willing to admit that I deserve. 

I am glad to-night to speak of Abraham Lincoln. I was little 
more than five years of age when the tragic death converted a 
nation's joy into a nation's mourning, but I had scarcely reached 
manhood's estate when I became an admirer of Abraham Lincoln ; 
and when I was a student in the law school I took him as my sub- 
ject in one of the contests which I entered, and the more I have 
studied him the larger has become my appreciation of him. I 
am glad that at this time we are so far removed from the preju- 
dice and passion engendered by a strife that we can behold him 
as a growing figure in our nation's history, and that in the appre- 
ciation of him all sections of our reunited land can gladlv join. 
On this occasion I desire to draw a few lessons from life. He 
was one of the great orators of this country. I believe that when 
the history of our public speakers is written, not one of them will 
stand higher than Abraham Lincoln. He lacked the polish of 
schools that some of them have ; he lacked the training and the 

i6 



preparation for this particular work ; but he had to a remarkable 
degree the essential things in oratory. And that he was an 
effective speaker, an eloquent speaker, a persuasive speaker there 
are hundreds in this audience can testify, because hundreds heard 
him speak. When I was a student in college a speaker explained 
to us the difference between Demosthenes and Cicero. He said 
"When Cicero speaks people say 'How well Cicero speaks !" but 
when Demosthenes speaks they say 'Let us go against Phillip.' " 
The difference being that one impressed himself upon the audi- 
ence, the other impressed his subject; one left the audience admir- 
ing the speaker, the other left the audience intent upon carrying 
out what the speaker advised. Lincoln resembled Demosthenes 
rather than Cicero, for people forgot the speaker in the earnest- 
ness with which they listened to what the speaker had proposed. 
Lincoln had the two essential things of the fine orator: he knew 
what he was talking about, and he meant what he said. And 
those are the things without which there can be no eloquence. 
Other things can be added to these, but they can not be taken from 
speech and eloquence be left. He was student enough to master 
his subject ; he filled himself with it, and when he spoke upon it 
he spoke from his heart to the hearts of those who listened. To 
these two qualities or characteristics he added a third most 
important element in oratory, and that was clearness of statement. 
Few men have lived in this country who could state a question 
more clearly than he could. It seems contradictory to say that 
there are certain self-evident truths. I not only endorse that 
proposition, but I will go further and say that all truth is self- 
evident, and that the best service I can render truth is to state it 
clearly, for a truth clearly stated needs no argument in its 
defense. 

Abraham Lincoln was a master of the art of clear and lucid 
statement. Illustration is a powerful form of argument. An 
apt illustration is one of the most convincing things that can be 
used. If we know that a thing is like something "we have seen, 
we can understand the thing that we have not seen. And he 
gathered his illustrations from the life of the people: therefore, 
when he spoke to the people he could make his subject clear and 
easily understood. He understood the use of the interrogatory, 
he could put an argument in a question : and that is one of the 
arts of oratory. Some of the strongest arguments ever presented 
in speech have been presented in the form of a question. Christ 
gave us an illustration of that : "What shall it profit a man 
if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'' How many 
volumes can you write before you will present that argument 
as strongly as it is presented in that question ? An unanswerable 
argument presented in a question. I do not believe we have any 
illustration in pul)Hc life in this country of greater power of 

17 



statement, or clearer, greater force in questioning than that pre- 
sented by Abraham Lincoln. There is a question that he pre- 
sented in one of his messages, and if the country had not been 
wrought up, if passion had not at that time clouded the vision, 
if the blood had not at that time been so hot that calmness was 
impossible, the question that he put must, it seems to me, have 
carried conviction with it. You will remember the powerful plea 
he made : "What if we do have war, it must end sometime ; we 
must live here side by side in peace — we can not separate, nature 
placed us so," and then the question, "Can aliens make treaties 
easier than friends can make laws ?" Where will you find an argu- 
ment that is stronger than the argument carried in that simple 
question ? 

But he was more than a great orator, he was a great states- 
man. Our country has produced no superior to him as an execu- 
tive dealing with problems as a practical statesman, with a 
grasp on things that he had. Morse defines a statesman as a man 
who foresees and foretells. Lincoln was a statesman ; he could 
foresee, and he foretold. Lincoln understood the human heart ; 
he understood the American people ; he understood the principles 
involved in the great contest ; and he could look ahead and see, 
and he spoke out. It is said that when he was preparing that 
speech that was the first in his national career, the speech at 
Springfield", he walked the floor trying to find some expression 
that would bring to the people the thought that was in his own 
mind ; and at last he said, "I have found it. The American people 
are a Bible-reading people, and a Bible quotation will not cinly be 
recognized by them, but it will have more influence with them 
than anything else I could quote ;" and then he quoted this : "A 
house divided against itself shall not stand." In my judgment it 
is the most effective Bible quotation that was ever used in the 
discussion of a public issue. And then, going beyond the strife, 
he foresaw the time when the house would cease to be divided. 
Forty-two years ago he passed from earth at the very climax 
of his great career. How happy he is to-night if from his abode 
above he can look down upon this country and see his prophecy 
fulfilled : the house no longer divided, the root of bitterness taken 
away, the people reunited, a nation one as he wanted it to be. He 
foresaw, he foretold. 

He had another quality of statesmanship : he had moral cour- 
age. I am not sure but moral courage is a finer virtue than phy- 
sical courage ; I am not sure but it is more difficult for a person 
to meet great opposition that does not endanger the bodv than 
to meet the opposition that imperils the body. If moral cour- 
age is not more difficult to exhibit and more rare, it is certainly 
an indispensible thing for a statesman ; and Lincoln had it. Lin- 
coln dared to stand alone ; he dared to speak his thoughts ; he 

i8 



dared to have his position ; he dared to submit his reasons and 
abide the consequences. He had passions — wonderful passions. 
On the one side he had some which would hold him back, and 
on the other some which would push him faster than he felt he 
ought to go. I never read the letter he wrote to Horace Greeley 
without feeling that my admiration for Lincoln rises a little more. 
It was the statement of the man who saw the light that he was to 
follow, who was determined to follow it, and who was willing 
to wait and suffer any kind of criticism until the time came to 
act. He fitted into his time; we needed then just such a man. 
The kindness of the man ! Have you read Markham's poem 
"Abraham Lincoln?" Markham has about a dozen lines that 
contain similes that I think have not been surpassed for their 
beauty ; and the one that I like best of them all was that in which 
he described Lincoln by saying that he had the loving kindness of 
the wayside well. I could see the well by the wayside where the 
traveler passing along stopped to quench his thirst ; the well that 
is always at hand ; the well that is friend to every one. I do not 
know that I have ever read a phrase that better describes a great, 
loving, overflowing heart than that — the loving kindness of the 
wayside well. 

He fitted into his time because he was great enough to hate 
slavery without hating slave-holders. And do you know that that 
is one of the God-like things to which man should aspire — to hate 
wrong and love the wrongdoer? To recognize honesty on the 
other side as well as on your side, and let your fight be against 
wrong. (Applause.) My friends, I do not know of another man 
anywhere who was his equal in depth and breadth of view. Born in 
Kentucky and reared in Illinois, he seemed to have been pre- 
pared for the great work he had to do. He loved the southern 
people, but his heart revolted against the institution of slavery,' 
He wanted to get rid of slavery and he did not want to hurt any- 
body who differed from him on the question. A great man in a 
great time ! But there were two sections of the country, and they 
differed upon a great question, and there was honesty on both 
sides. There was conscience behind the gun that pointed north 
and conscience behind the gun that pointed south. (Applause.) 
These people met questions that they had to settle ; these people 
met to settle the questions by the only way that seemed possible. 
A difference that defied a peaceful settlement. There were some 
in the North who were not broad enough to love the people of 
the South, in spite of the institution that was doomed : and there 
were those in the South not broad enough to love the people in 
the North in spite of their opposition to slavery. But Lincoln 
was large enough to love the people. North and South, and 
only hate the things that made two peoples where there 
ought to have been one people. (Applause.) Lincoln was 

19 



the typical American. I think we have not produced a man 
who better illustrated the possibilities of America. I believe we 
have not produced a man whose life gives more inspiration to the 
people than his life gives. We have never produced a man whose 
career was better proof of the fact that man's greatness is not of 
himself but in the virtues and the ideals which his life presents. 
Lincoln grew, not because he was a great orator, although that 
helped his growth ; he grew, not because he was a great states- 
man, for until he became invested with power he had not had an 
opportunity to prove that he was a statesman, and his reputation 
as an orator was far greater after his election than before, for 
few of the people of this country had a chance to know him well 
until he became President. He attached himself to an idea and 
he rose with that idea. To every young man Lincoln's life 
ought to be an inspiration, for Lincoln's life teaches that 
the man who takes hold of a great idea and forgets himself 
in his devotion to it will gather strength as the idea grows, and 
rise as the idea rises. (Applause.) Lincoln's life has well illus- 
trated that. Lincoln's power was more of a heart power. I be- 
lieve, judged by intellectual standards, that he is inferior to none. 
I do not mean by educational standards, because he lacked edu- 
cation, but by intellectual standards. Measured by mind, meas- 
ured by power to comprehend, measured by accuracy of judg- 
ment, measured by aptness of expression, he was inferior to none. 
But he was greater in his heart than he was in his head, and 
he proved that which has been demonstrated so often before, that 
while we brag about the head we after all respect the heart. Car- 
lisle, in the closing words of his "French Revolution." presents 
a very important thought. He says that thought is stronger than 
artillery and moulds the world like soft clay, and that back of 
thought is love and that there never was a great head unless 
there was a genuine heart behind it. (Applause.) Lincoln's 
heart took in the world. Lincoln's heart linked him to the com- 
mon people. Lincoln once said that God must have loved the 
common people, because he made so many of them. It was his 
way of expressing it, but Lincoln never used the phrase "com- 
mon people" as a term of reproach, for the highest compliment 
ever paid any class of people was paid to the common people. In 
the Bible it says that when Christ presented the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity the common people heard him gladly. It is a great com- 
pliment. Lincoln believed in the common people. Lincoln trusted 
the common people. Lincoln felt that the common people in this 
country were the nation's strength. They were then : they are 
now ; they ever will be. The common people produce the nation's 
wealth in times of peace ; they fight the nation's battles in times 
of war. The volunteer soldier, of whom we have heard so elo- 
quently to-night, is the common man. The common people work 



when the country needs workers; they fight when the country 
needs fighters. They make the laws, they enforce the laws ; and 
because they must enforce the laws, if necessary, they are careful 
when they make them. The common people were the people 
whom Lincoln looked up to. They were the people with whom he 
identified himself. He had struggled in their ranks and he knew 
their strength, and he knew that they would not fail in any crisis. 
Lincoln had faith; he was a man of faith. His name was Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and it was Abraham who gave us that first example 
of great faith, who, at the call of the Almighty, went out a thou- 
sand miles from home, among a strange people, to establish a 
new religion. Wonderful faith it was. And from that faith 
there grew one of the greatest races of the world ; and from that 
faith that he established there grew a religion until nearly four 
hundred million human beings worship the one God at whose call 
Abraham went forth. Faith is the power influencing all of our 
lives. Faith leads us to do and dare. And Lincoln had faith 
in himself. He believed that he could do things. He understood 
that which he believed he could accomplish— he was able to ac- 
complish. He had faith in humanity, and that is an important 
faith. He believed in mankind ; he knew the human heart, and he 
knew that when he came to the heart he found that all were much 

My friends, it is at the heart that we all meet. Travel in different 
lands and you will find people speaking different languages ; you 
will find different traditions and race characteristics and differences 
in history ; you will find differences in forms of government ; you 
will find differences in church worship; but when you find the 
heart you will find that mankind is much the same everywhere, 
and that if you would reach people, instead of directing all your 
arguments at the head, you have to direct your arguments at the 
heart. It is out of the heart that the purpose comes. It is the 
heart that directs the life, and from the heart comes the ideals 
and moral virtues upon which civilization rests. Buckle describes 
civilization as a state of the human mind, the principal element 
of which is the moral element. I would ask to differ with him. 
The moral element is essential to civilization, and the nations that 
have gone down have gone down because they were rotten at the 
heart. (Applause.) the heart, the heart is that upon which we 
must build, and Lincoln had faith in mankind because he knew 
that in the heart of every man was a sense of justice to which 
an appeal could be made.' He had faith in the government. He 
believed in our theory of government. He took as his great in- 
structor the author of the Declaration of Independence, and in 
his speeches and in his letters he spoke as eloquently of the wis- 
dom of Thomas Jefferson as any man has ever spoken. (Ap- 
plause.) He believed that our form of government would live: 



he believed that it would spread. It has lived, and it is spreading. 
A century and a quarter ago and a little more certain ideas of 
government were planted on this soil. They have grown here. 
Our nation did not make these ideas great ; the ideas made our 
nation great. Our nation's position to-day is due more than to 
any other thing to the fact that these ideas have emanated from 
this country. They have girdled the globe. The light that was 
shining here has sent out its rays to every land, and in all the years 
our influence in the world has been a high and holy one. For 
more than a century our nation has been a world power. Not 
only that — for more than a century our nation has been the great 
power in the world. (Applause.) Other nations had their 
thrones and their armies and their ships, and yet our nation with 
its little army and its little navy has been strong enough to force 
its ideas, throughout the world, on all countries. Have you no- 
ticed the growth of its ideas in the last two years? Within two 
years the Empress Dowager of China has sent envoys through- 
out the world to gather information for the adoption of a consti- 
tution. Within two years Austria has enlarged the basis of her 
representation • in the Reichsrath. Within a year the gov- 
ernment has given its influence to the enlargement of the basis of 
representation in the popular branch of the legislature. In Eng- 
land now the great political question is between the House of 
Commons and the House of Lords : Shall the people rule through 
their elected representatives, or shall electorial power "put down" 
the people's power? And look at Russia, who until recently, 
has been a synonym for despotism. Our blood has boiled 
as we have read of people dragged from their homes and im- 
prisoned or executed, and, after a while the people by infinite 
suffering and sacrifice, secured the privilege of a douma, and 
when an election was held and they had a chance to express them- 
selves they took advantage of it. In St. Petersburg 60,000 votes 
were cast, and 58,000 were cast against the Czar's ticket, 2,000 
for his ticket. In his voting precinct 300 voters were sent to the 
polls in guarded carriages. Eighty of them voted for him and 220 
voted for the opposition. And when the douma convened they 
did not indorse parties — they were all reformers, differing only 
in the degree of their radicalism. The Czar dissolved the douma 
and held a new election. The new douma is more radical than 
the old one. It was my good fortune to see the first douma in 
session. I believe no more remarkable body of men has assem- 
bled in this world for many years, and as they sat there you could 
read in their faces the history of a nation's sufifering, and a grim 
determination that Russia's wrongs should be righted. The new 
douma is in session ; the people have spoken again, and the Czar 
announces through his premier that the government will approve 
the people's measures providing for free speech, and free press. 



and uniform education. Thus is Russia moving forward. Thus 
is the voice of the people being heard. Thus are the ideas for 
which Lincohi contended spreading throughout the world, and 
when Russia enjoys these reforms to which she is entitled, and 
for which she has struggled, she will take her place among the 
great nations of the world, for people who are willing to die for 
liberty have in them the material of which great nations are made. 
There are three kinds of governments : Monarchy, aristocracy, 
and democracy. I dissent from tw^o-thirds of them. (Laughter.) 
Lincoln was right when he contended for a government of the 
people, by the people, and for the people. Neither the monarchy 
nor the aristocracy is among the strongest of governments. A 
republic is not only the strongest and wisest, but the most secure 
of governments. Why is our government stronger? Because 
the people are wilHng to defend it. Our government is stronger 
because the people love it, and they love it because it is good, and 
it is good because the people speak, and their voice is loud. (Ap- 
plause.) My friends, it needs not that we should praise Abraham 
Lincoln, his fame is secure. Nothing that we could say would re- 
duce his station. Fixed is his star in the firmament, and rising 
higher and higher. It will be seen by increasing millions, and 
wherever seen it will represent that which is highest and noblest 
and best in the life of a government like ours. Lincoln delivered 
an oration that has no equal in the same number of words in this 
language. The speech that he made at the battlefield of Gettys- 
burg, for the size of it and the length of it, has never been ap- 
proached by any human being. If he had never made any other 
speech, his fame as an orator might have rested on that. And in 
that speech, great because of its simplicity, far-reaching because 
of its depth, he said that they had not met there to hallow that 
ground, that those who had fallen there had hallowed it ; that they 
were there, not to consecrate it, but to consecrate themselves to the 
unfinished work which they who fell there had so well advanced, 
that it was rather for those who had assembled there to dedi- 
cate themselves, to consecrate themselves, to that unfinished work 
that a government of the people, by the people, and for the peo- 
ple should not perish from the earth. And so we are met here 
to-night, not that any feeble w^ords of ours can bring peace to one 
who sleeps, not that any flowers of rhetoric can be added to the 
flowers that have been piled upon his tomb, but rather that in the. 
spirit which he manifested we shall dedicate ourselves to that 
work which was so dear to him. He could look beyond the strife 
and the turmoil and see a united people ; we now realize the ful- 
fillment of his dream and of his vision. And as we meet on this 
anniversary, forty-two years after his death, when we can see the 
com])leted work which he began, but was not permitted to see en- 
tirely rounded out. we can understand, even better than those who 

23 



lived then, the priceless value of his service and the greatness of 
the work which he left to us that follow him. 

I come here to-night to vie with the soldiers in their homage 
to the great, dead President, to mingle my words with their's, and 
to have my heart beat as their hearts beat in sympathy with his 
aspirations and his hopes. I come to join with you, with all of 
you, as he would have us join, in the resolution that this nation 
shall be what he and the others who toiled for it hoped and de- 
sired and expected that it would be. Mr. Thurston has spoken of 
the effect of the Spanish war in bringing together people who had 
once been fighting each other. I was where I could realize some- 
thing of the seaming process, for short as was my service it was 
sufficient to enable me to testify from what I saw and heard that 
the rivalry in the Spanish war between the sons of those who 
wore the blue and the sons of those who wore the gray was to 
see who could show the greatest devotion and the highest loyalty 
to the flag which they both loved. (Applause.) But of all these 
regiments, gathered from the northland and the southland. I 
heard them playing the sectional airs, and then I heard them join 
in the national hymns, and I felt that indeed our people were one 
— no north, no south, no east, no west, a larger family our coun- 
try is to-day. The glory of our Civil War was not that one side 
whipped the other; it was that victors held the vanquished in such 
close embrace that they soon became good friends, and one na- 
tion now leads the world in all that goes to make up the greatness 
of a nation. If I ever doubted the superiority of my nation. I 
would not doubt it after having a chance to compare it with other 
nations. We complain of our money worshippers, and with rea- 
son, but my friends, there is more altruism in the United States 
than there is in any other nation on earth to-day, and our nation 
is doing .more in a disinterested way than any other nation that 
lives or ha§ lived. Our nation to-day is giving the world ideals, 
and the ideal is the most important thing. Our nation to-day is 
setting the example, and that example is having its influence 
around the world. Our nation is a peaceful nation. These soldiers 
who bared their breasts to the enemy's fire were lovers of peace, 
not professional soldiers, and when the war was over they went 
back to their occupations. And to-day there are no stronger forces 
for peace in this world than those who bore the musket when their 
country called them. These people in this country who. when the 
necessity arose, were willing to fight, these are the champions of 
peace, and these understand that a nation's position is to be 
demonstrated not by the force it exerts on other nations, but by 
the good we can do other nations. Our greatness is not measured 
by our army or our navy, but by our ideals. Ouf greatest prod- 
ucts are not the products of the farm or factory, but minds and 
bodies developed according to high ideals, and our greatest fac- 

24 



tories are not our factories with their towering smokestacks, but 
our schools and colleges and churches that take in raw material 
and turn out such a finished product as the world has never 
known before. (Applause.) This nation, with its government 
of the people, for the people, and by the people is destined to im- 
press the world as no other nation has impressed it, not by force 
or violence, but by developing here the highest civilization ever 
known, and our nation's rise through this development will in- 
fluence every other nation by the power of a noble example. 
I thank you. (Great applause.) 



25 



[From the Evening Star, Monday, April 15, 1907 ] 

Bryan Greeted by Large Crowd 



ELOQUENT NEBRASKAN PAYS TRIBUTE TO LIFE 
AND CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN 



GENERAL BLACK PRESIDES 



Exercises Under Auspices of Union Veteran Legion at the Co- 
lumbia Theater— Mr. Bryan's Address in Afternoon before 
the Y. M. C. A. at National Theater. 



Mr. William Jennings Bryan arrived in the city yesterday and 
was accorded an extremely warm reception on the part of citizens 
without regard to political affiliations. He came to meet two en- 
gagements'to deliver addresses, neither of which was m any way 
delated to partizanship. and he declined to say anything during the 
day that might be interpreted as introducing politics into the 
occasion. . 

]\Ir. Bryan spoke at night at the Columbia Theater on tlie 
life of Lincoln. He paid a glowing and eloquent tribute to the 
martvred President, and his powers of oratory were never dis- 
played with greater force than on that occasion. During the after- 
noon he addressed a meeting of the Y. ^I. C. A. at the National 
Theater, his subject then being "The Prince of Peace." An ar- 
rangement had been made by which he was to address the Sun- 
day-school of the First Presbyterian Church, but owing to_ the 
fact that he was late in arriving in the city he was prevented from 
filling that engagement. 

27 



When Mr. Bryan arrived at the Pennsylvania depot he was 
met by several committees and by a very large number of people. 
He was escorted to the Metropolitan Hotel and later to the resi- 
dence of Mr. Robert N. Harper, where he was entertained at 
luncheon. The luncheon began at one o'clock and lasted until time 
for Mr. Bryan to repair to the National to address the gathering 
there under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. Those present at 
the luncheon, besides host and guest of honor, were Dr. Donald 
C. MacLeod, Gen. John M. Wilson, R. Walton Moore, of Fair- 
fax, Va. ; Commissioner West, Blair Lee, A. E. O. Leckie, Judge 
Seth Shepard, William H. Saunders, B. S. ISIinor, and Scott C. 
Bone. 

Among those in the committee that met Mr. Bryan at the 
train and escorted him to his rooms were : J. F. Miller, C T. 
Bride, C. L. Du Bois, A. E. L. Leckie, W. J. Dwyer, George S. 
Benson, Edwin A. Newman, John Boyle, George Drury, Benja- 
min Davis, George Killeen, S. S. Yoder, P. T. Moran. Patrick 
Hartigan, J. H. Brinkman, F. S. Correll, John Costello, H. H. 
Brower, Oliver Shaw, O. P. Hallam, T. R. Sparks, and Edward 
Sefton. 

Those on the stage were: Gen. Robert Shaw Oliver, Act- 
ing Secretary of War; Maj. Gen. Franklin J. Bell, Chief of Staff, 
United States Army; Gen. John M. Wilson, United States Army, 
president Board of Trade ; Mr. Henry B. F. Macfarland, Commis- 
sioner of the District of Columbia ; Mr. D. W. Baker, United 
States District Attorney ; Mr. Charles H. Treat, Treasurer of the 
United States ; Mr. William E. Andrews, Auditor of the Treas- 
ury Department ; Mr. Hilary A. Herbert, Marion Butler, Mr. 
Truman Newberry, Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; Mr. Gifford 
Pinchot, Chief of Forestry, Agricultural Department ; Mr. John 
W. Gaines, Member of Congress ; Mr. Samuel S. Smith, Member 
of Congress ; Mr. Vespasian Warner, Commissioner of Pensions ; 
Col. F. T. F. Johnson, Mrs. Ellen Spenser Mussey, Mrs. Allyn K. 
Capron, Capt. Nathan Bickford, Maj. Richard Sylvester, Chief of 
Police ; Gen. H. G. Worthington, the only surviving pallbearer 
at Lincoln's funeral ; Judge D. A. Grimsley, Willis J. Abbott, Mr. 
Seth Shepard, Chief Justice Court of Appeals of the District of 
Columbia ; Mr. Louis F. McComas, Associate Justice Court of 
Appeals of the District of Columbia ; Mr. Harry M. Clabaugh, 
Chief Justice Supreme Court of the District of Columbia ; Messrs. 
Job Barnard, Ashley M. Gould, and Wendell P. Stafford, Asso- 
ciate Justices Supreme Court of the District of Columbia ; Col. 
Charles Lyman,, chief appointment division. Treasury Department ; 
A. E. L. Leckie, James B. McLaughlin, Capt. O. H. Oldroyd, J. 
G. McClery, Commander Newton Ferree and staff of the G. A. R. ; 
Ezra Gould, president of the Washington Mechanics' Savings 

28 



Bank ; Mr. P. A. Drury, president National City Bank ; Mr. W. 
L. Chambers, Spanish Treaty Claims Commission; Mrs. Ralph 
Walsh, president United Daughters of Confederacy ; Mrs. Rosalie 
H. Bocock, corresponding secretary Daughters of Confederacy; 
Mrs. Drury C. Ludlow, i\lr. Charles A. Douglas, attorney; Mr. 
F. W. Huidekoper, president Sons of Revolution ; Mr. Blair Lee, 
Mrs. John M. Thurston, and Mr. J. McDowell Carrington, presi- 
dent Confederate Veteran Association. 

GREETED BY LARGE AUDIENCE 

The evening meeting at the Columbia Theater was attended 
by an enormous audience. The occasion was the forty-second an- 
niversary of the death of Lincoln, and the meeting was under the 
auspices of the Union Veteran Legion Encampment, No. iii. 
Mr. Bryan was escorted to the platform upon his arrival by a 
committee consisting of Mr. George S. Benson, chairman; Air. 
Horace H. Brower, secretary ; Mr. Oliver P. Hallam, Mr. Oliver 
Shaw, Mr. Fred R. Sparks. 

The invocation was by Rev. H. N. Couden, chaplain of the 
House of Representatives. Col. F. H. Hartley, commanding En- 
campment, No. Ill, U. V. L., introduced Gen. John C. Black, 
past commander-in-chief of the G. A. R., who acted as perma- 
nent chairman. 

"It is most appropriate," said Gen. Black, "that a statesman 
should speak of Lincoln, and most fitting that tributes to Lincoln 
should be spoken by an orator who has stirred the human pulse 
by his eloqvience." 

The Thirteenth United States Cavalry Band was on hand, and 
rendered a patriotic medley. Col. John Tweedale, United States 
Army, entertained the company by a short reading, as did Prof. 
Jasper Dean McFall and Miss McFall by a song. Former Senator 
John M. Thurston spoke briefly of the "Volunteer Soldier." Mr. 
Thurston paid a glowing tribute to that gradually disappearing 
army, now represented by men who wear the Union button. Vic- 
tory for the Union cause, he said, in those dark days of the repub- 
lic,' was foreshadowed by the hand of Providence. 

ELICITS GREAT APPLAUSE 

Mr. Bryan was then introduced and was received by an out- 
burst of applause. Raising his right hand in the manner so familiar 
to those who have seen him sway many public gatherings during his 
two campaigns, the applause came to a sudden stop, and Mr. Bryan 
began the delivery of an address that was pronounced by men who 
knew him at various times during his career as one of the most 

29 



finished oratorical efiforts of his life. Those who had not seen 
Mr. Bryan in a long time, and most of the audience was of that 
cla^s, marked but slight changes in his appearance. The same 
vigor that characterized him when he delivered that commanding 
speech which swayed the National Democratic Convention in 
1896, and gave him the nomination for the Presidency, was evi- 
denced in his manner and words. There was, perhaps, a little 
more of pose and deliberation, but no one who heard him sug- 
gested that he had lost anything of the wonderful powers of ora- 
tory for which he is so well known. He is but slightly older in 
appearance, but retains that same smile which was ever present 
with him at moments when political victory seemed within his 
reach and when defeat was announced when the election was over. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's address he shook hands 
with a large number of people who crowded to the stage. Mr. 
Bryan left on the midnight train for New York. 

The committee having charge of the preliminaries for the 
memorial services was headed by G. S. Benson. Through Mr. 
Benson's efforts the services of Mr. Bryan were procured. 



30 



[From the Washington Times, Monday, April 15, rpoy ] 

Throngs Hear Bryan Speak upon 
Lincoln and Prince of Peace 



PARTISAN POLITICS ENTIRELY ABSENT FRO^I 
ORATOR'S TWO ADDRESSES 



'peerless leader" is greeted with great enthusiasm 



Washington lay under the spell of William Jennings Bryan's 
witchery of words yesterday. 

He came at noon and left at midnight. He addressed two 
immense crowds— one in the National Theater at the Y. M. C. A. 
men's meeting, in the afternoon, and the other in the Columbia 
Theater, at the Lincoln Memorial meeting, under the auspices of 
Encampment No. iii. Union Veteran Legion, in the evening. 

At both meetings he was heard by capacity audiences, audi- 
tors standing in every available foot of space, and at both places 
he was literallv mobbed by his admirers, who crowded around 
him, detaining him that they might shake hands with him. He is 
balder, older-looking, and more fleshy than when he was in Wash- 
ington as a member^of Congress. But he proved himself as capa- 
ble as ever of going through with a strenuous day and ending it 
with a smile. 

tempests of applause 

His train from Charlottesville was late and he reached this 
city not until noon. An informal reception at the j\Ietroj)olitan 
Hotel was followed bv a luncheon at the home of Robert N. Har- 
per. He was then driven to the National Theater, where he de- 

■31 



livered his famous lecture on the "Prince of Peace." After a din- 
ner at the residence of Cotter Bride, Mr. Bryan spoke at the Co- 
lumbia Theater. He then took the train for New York. 

At every turn the famous Nebraskan was met with glad 
smiles. Each audience, when he arose to address it, broke into 
such a tempest of applause that he had to raise his hand again and 
again to still the tumult. He demonstrated by his visit that there 
are thousands here who love him. 

Of politics Mr. Bryan. said not a word. His addresses were 
Sunday orations, and the words that fell from his lips gave no 
hint that the speaker was one of the best known politicians in the 
United States, except when he touched upon basic questions of 
world statesmanship. There was no breath of partisanship. 

At the Columbia Theater last night he stood on a stage 
draped with big star-spangled banners. On the platform with 
him were many of this city's most prominent men. He spoke of 
Lincoln, praising him as an orator, a statesman, and a lover of 
all men. 



32 



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